I’m currently working around the touch events of IE10 and even if I’m lucky enough to have a Windows 8 tablet, I was looking for a simpler way to do basic tests on my classical laptop without switching to the tablet each time. While looking for that, I’ve discovered several tips & tricks that may help you debugging the IE10 touch events in your code without even using a touch device. Nice side effect: the same approach will also help you to test & debug your responsive web design!

As a complement resource, you may have a look to the Pointer.JS library that mimics the IE10 model for the other browsers.

The Windows 8 Simulator to simulate touch

The Windows Simulator is installed with the development tools and is normally designed to help you testing & debugging your Metro Style Apps. You may learn a bit more details here: First look at Windows Simulator

Still, nothing prevents us to use it for debugging web applications running inside IE10 in the simulator. Let me show you how.

3 – Navigate to the URL you’d like to test and/or debug. For instance, let’s test this demo: Finger Painting from the IE Test Drive. Using the simulator, you can simulate classical mouse input and/or touch switching modes using this 2 buttons: